Fractured Glass
by FallArbor
Summary: One good thing about a broken window is that one more crack doesn't matter...NaruSaku


I'm sorry guys, I've been at my dad's house for a few weeks now, and Sweden before that. All of my updates and storyboards are at my mom's house, so I can't get to "Too Late" for about a week still…

Still refining the stream of thought I'm working on, and while most italicized things will be thoughts, the narration is omniscient so a lot of what's written could be thoughts too. You'll see for yourself…

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_F_r**a**_**C**__tu__**R**__**e**_**d**_** g**__lA_**S**s

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_Clouds_

As a prideful man, he rarely liked to admit the glory found in anything, let alone something as sullen as an overcast day. For some reason, though, there was something so wondrous about the sky on windswept rainy afternoons like this one that he couldn't help but smile.

He stared out of the window, fingers slowly tapping against the barrier in subconscious time with the nature working around him. Perhaps it was the way it made his reflection appear in the dark water, clear, and smoothly caressing his pale skin and ruby eyes in the white light. Maybe it was the rain that so often accompanied those days, whipping against the trees and ground with less mercy than he, the last Uchiha, possessed. The rain fell in crystal meteorites, softly battering the glass pane keeping him distant, always distant, to the things he cherished most. If he weren't touching the window, he'd not even be sure if it existed, invisibly tangible like the sky he was pondering.

Finally, he decided it was the blood. On days like that, where the sun was veiled by the thick clouds, blood didn't exist. The only thing that existed in the pale glow was shadows, liquid, solid, ethereal; Blood dripping became smoky granite, creeping and crawling along the ground and pooling together before being washed away by the cleansing tides of the sky.

"Sasuke," The voice was soft, barely more than a whisper against the howling wind outside.

"Is it time?"

His tone somewhat shocked the listener. For the first time in his life, the leader seemed somewhat…hesitant.

--

_Clouds_!

There was no explaining his fascination with clouds, though it wasn't from lack of trying. While others stared gloomily outside waiting for the sun, he often found himself enjoying the rain and wind as physically as possible, enjoying cleansing shower as though he were washing himself of earthly troubles. At least, he liked to think that. No one else did, at least not about him.

He found himself on a branch, by then, soaked through his clothes and smiling for the same reason. Ignoring the exasperated chastisement from his teammate, he leapt further through the trees, still trying to find the perfect explanation for his antics.

At first he thought it was his clothes. Nothing makes orange stand out more than the dulling out of the single greatest distraction there is: the sky. In the clouds, orange became a beacon, something exuberant and bright, passionate, lustful! All those things the sun failed to be when being muffled by the patchwork quilt nature rests under, periodically.

He shrugged, looking at himself. That couldn't be it.

Soon after he found himself entwined in a mess of leaves, the emerald bindings dripping the fallen stars in limpid pools on the tangled roots of the tree he was in.

The leaves, he supposed. During those days when the clouds dominated, the only thing that could match the brilliance of his jacket was the leaves on trees. Weeping willows that literally wept with rain silently conversed in the breeze with tearstained pines. Ashen elders with polyester emerald leaves danced and waved, delightful greeting with a somewhat seductive motion…so yes, the leaves were certainly worthwhile.

But his teammate finally caught up with him, clutching him firmly by his rain-slicked jacket and heaving him bodily under the protection of a rather large maple tree. It was then, when he was pinned against the bark by his lithe comrade that it truly struck him why he found such glory in the most thunderously stormy of days. It was the way her rosette hair, smooth and glittering in the rain, fell in living streams about her neck. It was the way her creamy skin, alive with the wind and aglow from the shaded sky, moved with the grace of a swan taking flight, even through the wet grass and windy air.

Most of all, though, it was the way her eyes never failed to sparkle, regardless of how much light was shining…

But like he said, it's not like he could ever explain it, no matter how much she reprimanded him for being outside, even if it were just to be outside…with her.

"Why do you have to be so stupid?!" She repeated finally, exhaling loudly.

He frowned, not quite at her, but at the whole _stupid_ situation. After all, what else was there to say?

------**End**-------

Alrighty, that was weird. I tried to show the contrast of their characters by showing what they did in response to the things they care about, or rather in here, clouds. Sasuke watched from behind a window, refusing to touch physically what he wanted most, Naruto embraced it as physically as possible, though found himself unable to actually say how he feels. There was a lot more there, I tried to be a bit more symbolic here, and even the interpretations I have here are up for debate…it's really up to the individual about what he or she gathers from the writing.

I don't know if I did the symbolism and characterization well, but writing is always a work in progress. This is not a oneshot, and I'll try to update it along with my other story. This is the prologue, so it's short, but I'll try to get the other chapters pretty long.

Cheers,

FallArbor


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